PALESTINE Photographs JEWISH BOOK Israel GIDAL MOI VER VOROBEICHIC LERSKI ZADEK

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Seller: judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,805) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 285624185570 PALESTINE Photographs JEWISH BOOK Israel GIDAL MOI VER VOROBEICHIC LERSKI ZADEK.   DESCRIPTION :  Here for sale is a MOST THOROUGH , RICHLY and BEAUTIFULLY and PROFUSELY PHOTOGRAPHED reference Hebrew - Jewish - Judaica - Judaism Israeli book of remarkable size and scope , Presenting in TEXT and PICTURES around 200 representative of the ERETZ ISRAEL PHOTOGRAPHY from its first days untill nowdays . Starting with BONFILS and THE AMERICAN COLONY , Through SOSKIN and BEN DOV, Then CHRISTELER ( Kristeller ) , TIM GIDAL , VOROBEICHIC - MOI VER , KLUGER , ZADEK  up to RUTHENBERG , CAPA , BROWN , MEROM and nowdays younger generations of PHOTOGRAPHERS , Also Chalil Raad, Fadil Saba and Karimeh Abbud , Helmar Lerski, Walter Kristeller , Naftali Avnon (Rubinstein), Tim Gidal , Lasar Dünner, Sasha Alexander, and Ellen Rosenberg (Auerbach). Kahvedijan and Hrnat Nakashian , Comeriner, Kluger , Rosenberg .  Around 200 PHOTOGRAPHERS to count them all . Most important and thorough reference book ( Or ALBUM so to speak ) on the thrilling subjest of the ERETZ ISRAEL PHOTO. GRAPHERS . Less than a decade old and yet , Out of print and sought after  . Throughout illustrated . Original photographed HC. Original illustrated DJ.   9.5 x 13" . 296 throughout illustrated pp . Pristine condition . Tightly bound.  clean . Practicaly unused. ( Pls look at scan for accurate AS IS images )  . Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .   PAYMENTS : Payment method accepted : Paypal . SHIPPMENT :SHIPP worldwide via registered mail is $ 35 ( Airmail is extra - Very large & heavy volume . Over 2.3 KG ) . Domestic $12 only with buy it now. be sent inside a protective packaging . Handling around 5-10 days after payment.  Moï Ver (Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic) was born in 1904 in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he also studied painting. In 1927, visited the Bauhaus in Dessau to take courses with Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Joseph Albers, before he left for Paris to study at the Ecole de Photo Ciné. After several unrealised projects for photographic books, necessity led him to begin a career as a reporter. He immigrated to Palestine in 1934, and from 1950 he devoted himself to painting. He died in 1995. Moi Ver: Paris In Paris, his quintessential avant-garde book object published in 1931, Mo- Ver succeeds in blending dynamic photographic montage with an elaborate graphic layout. Utilizing the double-spread as one unified plane, each turn of the page not only surprises, but accentuates the charged rhythm built into the book itself. The bulk of information in these pictures documents mundane street activities in cobblestoned Paris of the late twenties. But the method in which Moi Ver chose to present his material, in its kaleidoscopic layering and frenzied repetitiveness, emphasizes an experimental approach to picture-construction; as if we, the viewers, were walking about bombarded by noise and reflected light. Within each picture, visual data is spliced with pattern, alluding to a lapse of time, as if they were short film vignettes. M. Vorobeichic, who also used the artist name Moi Ver, and whose real name was Moses Vorobeichic (1904), in Israel renamed Moshe Raviv. This painter/photographer is known for his picture-books on the Ghetto of Wilna and Paris (end of the twenties), early examples of the Bauhaus photographic style. (German) From the Preface The Jewish Lane in Light and Shadow by S. Chneour About Paris : 'The book that introduced Moi Ver to the world is exhilaratingly eccentric, definitely avant-garde.... Moi Ver's Paris is a city in motion, hurtling almost out of control. Cobblestone streets, bustling crowds, facades, railway tracks, bridges. the glittering river, and countless monuments shift and shatter here.... Moi Ver's version of Paris was eclipsed two years later by the publication of Brassai's more conventionally seductive Paris de Nuit, but no one has yet matched Moi Ver's vision of the brutal, chaotic, irresistible modern city.'-Vince Aletti, from the Book of 101 Books In Paris, his quintessential avant-garde book, Moï Ver succeeded in blending dynamic photographic montage with elaborate graphic layouts. Utilizing the double-spread as one unified place, each turn of the page not only surprised but accentuated the charged rhythm built into the book itself. The bulk of information in these pictures documents mundane street activities in the cobblestone-covered Paris of the late 20s. But the method in which Moi Ver chose to present his material, in its kaliedoscopic layering and frenzied repetitiveness, emphasized an experiential approach to picture construction-as if we, the viewers, were walking about, bombarded by noise and reflected light. Originally published in 1931 by Editions Jeanne Walter with an introduction by Futurist Fernand Leger, now long out of print and exceptionally rare, this facsimile reproduction of Paris brings back into circulation one of the seminal photographic books of the century. "My grandfather on my mother’s side was a photographer and artist named Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic (who also worked under the pen name Moï Ver). He lived from 1904 to 1995. Born and raised in Vilna, now Vilnius in Lithuania, Moshé lived and worked in Paris before moving to Tel Aviv and eventually settling in Safed in northern Israel. In the late 1920s he studied at the famous Bauhaus school in Dessau, Germany, where his instructors included Paul Klée and Vassily Kandinsky. Moshe produced many paintings, especially in the later part of his career. As a young man, however, he was recognized primarily as a photographer, employing many innovative and creative techniques. Two major books of his photography were published. The first, “The Ghetto Lane in Vilna” (published in 1931) documented the everyday life of the city’s Jewish residents. In the same year, his second book, titled “Paris” was published by Jeanne Walter, with an introduction by Fernand Leger (it was republished in 2004 as “Ci-Contre - 110 Photos by Moï Ver,” by Ann and Jürgen Wilde, with commentary by Inka Graeve Ingelmann and Hannes Böhringer). An exhibition of these photographs was held in the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in the winter of 2004/05." taken from flickr. Moi Ver (1904–1955) was a photographer and painter. Life and work Moi Ver was born in 1904 in Vilnius, Lithuania as Moses Vorobeichic, Moi Ver initially studied painting. In his early 20s he matriculated at the Bauhaus, taking courses with Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Joseph Albers, and left from there to attend the Ecole Photo One in Paris. In his book Moi Ver: Paris, he produced avant-garde photomontages. Originally published in 1931 by Editions Jeanne Walter with an introduction by Futurist Fernand Léger. He adopted Zionism in 1934 and immigrated to what was then known as Palestine. Moshe Raviv-Vorobeichic (as he called himself in Israel) focus more on painting than photography and lived in Safed until his death in 1995. Moï Ver Moï Ver (Moshé Raviv-Vorobeichic) was born in 1904 in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he also studied painting. In 1927, visited the Bauhaus in Dessau to take courses with Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Joseph Albers, before he left for Paris to study at the Ecole de Photo Ciné. After several unrealised projects for photographic books, necessity led him to begin a career as a reporter. He immigrated to Palestine in 1934, and from 1950 he devoted himself to painting. He died in 1995. .Zoltan Kluger Went to see an exhibition at the Eeretz Yisrael Museum. Zoltan Kluger, Chief Photographer 1933-1958." These are official Zionist propaganda photos, some of them staged, but many of them impressive nevertheless. He also photographed Palestinian refugees (although not for the Zionist institutions) and workers clearing the rubble from abandoned Palestinian villages after the War of Independence. Although a staunch Zionist, the Hungarian born Zoltan also had an uneasy relationship with the Zionist institutions that provided his livelihood and, like many Israeli artists even today, fretted about being unnoticed because he was working in a Levantine backwater. "I'm suffocating," he was quoted as saying. "I'll die. I'm not progressing. I'm lagging behind other photographers in the world. The pioneers here are dying from fever, living in poverty, tired and gloomy, and I'm supposed to always photograph them laughing. I'm tired of taking photographs of laughing pioneers." Eventually he moved to New York, opened a photo store and , until this exhibition, was forgotten. ****** "Photo Prior / Rudi Weissenstein: Retrospective," historical adviser: Dr. Eli Shealtiel, design and editing of photographs: Noam Schechter, Daniella De-Nur Publishers and Am Oved Publishing House, 239 pages, NIS 159 "And now the book!" reads the announcement on the front jacket of "Photo Prior / Rudi Weissenstein: Retrospective." On the back is the clarification: "In the wake of 120,000 visitors to the exhibition." Thus, this book was born following an amazing success. For a month and a half last spring, Tel Aviv's renovated Reading power station played host to an exhibition of photographs of Tel Aviv from the 1930s to the `60s. The exhibition, which consisted of photographs taken by Rudi Weissenstein, attracted crowds of visitors, many of whom paid a return visit. Such mass interest in a photography exhibition is unquestionably a rare phenomenon and was given sympathetic coverage in the media. "As a sociocultural event, the exhibition is absolutely amazing... . The nation today needs a smile and some comfort... " wrote curator and art historian Gideon Ofrat on the back cover; "In the storefront window of this photo studio, one can find the history of the State of Israel," wrote Miki Kaufman; and journalist and writer Adam Baruch wrote: "This is the way we were, this is the way we looked, and we are obligated to remember that fact..." Even if the exhibition and the reaction to it was an outstanding phenomenon, a book review is not the appropriate context for dealing with it. However, the claim that these photographs are an objective expression of an historical reality or even the "first draft of history" - as David Rubinger puts it - certainly must arouse certain doubts. Even those who are not experts on post-modernist theories regarding the gap between the image (or the photograph, which, no matter how "documentary" it is, is nonetheless an image) and reality will not find it difficult to perceive how Weissenstein's photographs seek to mold the appearance of "history" in a formulaic manner rather than trying to convey either the direct impression of an isolated event or a personal interpretation of what is happening in front of the camera lens. The photographs are, in fact, staged and polished affairs. For example, two children are photographed with their backs to the camera as they jointly hold a copy of the newspaper "Davar for Children" as if the entire front page is being presented to the photographer ("Children reading `Davar for Children,'" 1936); a young woman in shorts and high-heeled shoes, with a kerchief on her head, strikes a pose while holding a rifle and standing atop a pile of sandbags ("Hanita, another `homa umigdal' [`tower and stockade'] settlement" [created to clandestinely increase the number of Jewish settlements despite the position of the British Mandatory authorities]; a young woman on guard duty, 1938; a young man, standing in the middle of a Tel Aviv street holding a huge fish on his back and photographed from below ("A fisherman in Tel Aviv," 1952); and so forth. The book contains a sizable number of stylized photos of "people at work" - in heroic poses, in the manner favored by many photographers in Israel during that era. The same stylization can be observed in the book's photographs of sports events, ceremonies, official occasions and "ethnographic" (that is, Sephardi) scenes, as well as outdoor photographs documenting the "building-up of a country." Weissenstein was not unique: His photos are part of the immense photography work that was being conducted at the time in the Land of Israel and which has recently begun to be researched; nonetheless, no mention whatsoever is made of this extensive photographic activity. A missed opportunity Rudi (Shimon; like many others living in British Mandatory Palestine, he Hebraized his name, a fact that is not even mentioned in the book) Weissenstein (1910-1992) was born in Czechoslovakia, studied photography in Vienna from 1929 to 1931, and moved to Palestine in 1936. He began working in photography and journalism and, in 1940, he opened the Prior photography studio at 30 Allenby Street in Tel Aviv. Over the years, he amassed some quarter of a million negatives of photographs of people, landscapes and events. This is all the biographical material provided by this book, which prides itself on being (as the subtitle suggests) a "retrospective." Furthermore, this biography is presented in a small number of lines appearing on the inner flap of the dust jacket. "Photo Prior" also includes a number of personal-nostalgic essays by Uri Dvir, Miki Kaufman and David Rubinger, who apparently were invited to "beef up" this photo album. If the photographer is not so important, then perhaps the photographs themselves are the main thing, are the "history"? This sounds very good in theory; however, in practice, despite the widely heard phrase, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but not if it is unaccompanied by a few words of background information. For example, what can we learn from the photo on page 73 whose caption reads "A table at which are seated a number of distinguished personalities who are participating in a Tu Bishvat ceremony, 1947"? Who are these distinguished personalities? Where did the ceremony take place? Not one word of explanation is given. Or what about "Workers of a steel plant on strike, 1950"? (p.147) Where was the plant? What strike is being referred to here? And how are we to understand the caption "Wedding celebration in Ramle, 1948" (p.129) to the photograph of an accordionist surrounded by people wearing khaki-colored clothes who are singing to his accompaniment? Who got married? How can we identify the site as the town of Ramle? And, generally speaking, why was this photograph chosen and what does it represent? Why is the letter-carrier in the photograph with the caption "The photo studio's letter-carrier, 1940" (p.31) wearing a brimmed cap with an Israel Post Office emblem (Israel became an independent state in 1948)? What value is there in the presentation of "historical" photographs whose captions contain lacunae or are cryptic or simply erroneous? Visitors to the exhibition were not troubled by the question "Who/what can we see in this photo?" and a number of them were no doubt delighted to discover themselves in the photographs. However, what might be "passable" for a temporary exhibition in a structure of the Israel Electric Corporation (the exhibition's curator Hannah Koffler is not even mentioned in the book) is absolutely unacceptable in a book that seeks to immortalize the photographic material it contains. Apparently, in order to reap the fruits of the exhibition's success, the book was published in a hurry, and this fact is apparent in the book's first photograph, which bears an erroneous caption. Haste and other decisions involved in the making of this book have created a missed opportunity. Historical importance Even if the fact has not been stated explicitly, it can be assumed that the book tries to present Rudi Weissenstein not just as a commercial photographer and the owner of a Tel Aviv photo studio but also as a creator of major historical importance - as both a participant in the history of photography in Israel and a participant and documenter of historical events. However, on both counts, the book has missed its target. As noted above, Weissenstein was one of a number of photographers who worked in Israel after its creation as well as in the pre-state years and who served the Zionist cause, such as, for example, Zoltan Kluger, Tim Gidal and Yaakov Rosener. Many of these photographers were employed by semi-government institutions, such as the Jewish National Fund. This fact, as well as the spirit of "national commitment" that was felt by the photographers during this period, had an impact on the photographic product, which at times had a clearly propagandistic character. In this book about Weissenstein, no reference or hint is made that some of the photographs were commissioned, nor is the reader provided with any information on the circumstances under which the picture was taken or whether the photograph was subsequently publicized and, if so, where. The book also ignores certain important facts. For example, in the early days of his photo studio, Weissenstein had a partner, Kurt Zilman, who worked with him for a considerable period of time and who was responsible for studio portraits, while Weissenstein handled outdoor shots. It is very possible that some of the portraits appearing in the book (for instance, Yigal Allon, 1948) may have been photographed by Zilman. I found the information on Weissenstein's partner in Rona Sela's "Photography in Palestine in the 1930s-1940s" (which was published in 2001). Another fact I discovered in Sela's book was that Weissenstein was one of the leaders of the struggle waged by photographers here for professional status and for copyright to their works, especially the struggle that was fought against the JNF and Keren Hayesod for the copyright to negatives. In short, what we could and should know about Weissenstein, in terms of his personal and professional life, does not appear in this book. Even the contribution of these photographs to a study of Israeli history is limited. As already noted, the captions are flawed while, here and there, and in a purely arbitrary manner, we are provided with information whose relevance is unclear. For example, alongside a photograph from 1966 of the clock-tower in Jaffa we are informed when and why the tower was built. Alongside the picture of the coffin of the founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in Tel Aviv, we are presented with a letter, full of pathos, from the secretary of the World Zionist Organization to the Israel Air Force pilot of the plane that had brought the coffin to Israel. Family photo album Apparently, this book's creators saw a need for providing its readers with a Zionist education and for even explaining with brief comments who are the figures appearing in the portraits, as if "Photo Prior" were an encyclopedia or a "Who's Who." For instance, alongside Yitzhak Rabin's portrait appears the statement that he was assassinated in 1995, while alongside Ariel Sharon's portrait is the information that he has been the Israeli prime minister since May 2001. Moshe Katsav's portrait is accompanied by the statement that he is Israel's eighth president. Although we are offered this vital information, we are not told anything about the reasons why their portraits (from 1967, 1956 and 1977 respectively) were taken at that specific time and under what circumstances. Nor is any information provided on a group of fashion photos from the `50s - who is the model, who is the designer, what the model is wearing, and why this particular photograph was chosen. Thus, anyone who wants to research Israeli fashion during that period will derive little help from these photos. I find it difficult to fathom precisely what contribution was made by the book's historical adviser. The money would have been better spent on the hiring of a history major to do the basic research. Alternatively, the author's creators could have cooperated with one of today's batch of scholars of Israeli photography. This multi-flawed book does, however, have a considerable number of pictures of the photographer's wife, his son and daughters, which turn it into a sort of extended family photo album. The praise showered throughout the book on his wife Miriam for her "absolute expertise regarding the archive's mysteries" and for her "amazing ability" as someone who possesses "much knowledge and is very familiar with the material ... and who has displayed infinite dedication and meticulousness" allude to the key role she has played in the publication of "Photo Prior" and in the book's problems. The spouses of artists and creators do not always receive due recognition for their work, which at times remains behind the scenes - namely, the collection, preservation and documentation of the artist's work. Undoubtedly, the spouse's work here is invaluable and its absence would have meant that much data on an important artist would have fallen into the abyss of oblivion. However, absolute control of an artist's archives can also have negative ramifications: the supply of partial or imprecise information and, especially, the imposition of limitations on the scholarly work that could turn a family photo album into a really important public and historical document. I do not share in the nostalgic excitement over routine photos that have not benefited in any possible way from the book's arbitrary editing, its design or its didactic use of Zionist and literary texts. Nor do I have the impression that Weissenstein was a great artist who can be credited with outstanding technical or aesthetic accomplishments. Nonetheless, I find some interest in these old photos, if only because of the fact that they document eras that have come and gone. For example, I have noted to what extent it was customary, during the `30s and `40s, to wear a hat in this country - whether because of the searing sun or whether because of religious traditions. There is, of course, a vast difference between the caps worn by laborers and the hats worn by bourgeois men. It is also interesting to note how many trees Tel Aviv once had and how crowded its beaches were even then, and to read the store signs, the graffiti and the movie marquees appearing in the photographs of Tel Aviv. There are also photographs that reveal more than what their captions appear to suggest. For instance, the photo of the Manshieh neighborhood on the outskirts of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, a neighborhood that was leveled to the ground (p.122). Who destroyed Manshieh and why? What was the fate of its inhabitants? Not one word of explanation is given. Yet, only a few pages earlier, above the naive caption, "Battles in Tel Aviv, demolition of houses, 1947," appears a close-up photo of a single house (no evidence of any battle can be seen) and the house itself has been broken into; it is empty and in the stages of being demolished. The house is simply "identified" with the label "An Arab house." In this particular case, the picture with the words it contains needs no further explanations. Dr. Dalia Manor teaches Israeli Culture at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies ******* The first comprehensive exhibition of the photographs of Rudi (Shimon-Rudolph) Weissenstein (1910-1992) will open on Independence Day in the Turbine Hall at Reading Power Station in Tel Aviv. The exhibition, "A Studio in Tel Aviv," curated by Hana Kofler, will include 180 photographs from Weissenstein's ample archive of a quarter of a million negatives. The show includes the famous photo of the ceremonial proclamation of the founding of the State of Israel at the old Tel Aviv Museum on Rothschild Boulevard. Weissenstein was the only still photographer invited to take pictures at the ceremony (a fact disputed by some, according to Kofler) and the photos he shot that day made history when they were published all over the world, and essentially shaped the visual image of the event. This exhibition offers the merest fraction of the archive. Kofler chose photos relating to Tel Aviv only - a painstaking and precise cataloging of principal events, buildings, social life, portraits of public figures and anonymous images from the city over 55 years of intensive work. Weissenstein arrived in Israel in 1936. In the early 1940s, he opened the Pri-Or Studio on Allenby Street, across from the old Mugrabi cinema. The shop and the wonderfully preserved and organized archive are still at that same location, proudly and meticulously administered by his widow, Miriam, an impressive and intense figure whose age (89) is not evident in her manner. The art deco sign over the storefront stands out from the typical signage surrounding it. Among the portraits in the shop window is a 1956 black-and-white photo of Yitzhak Rabin. Part of the current exhibition is an instructive series showing buildings under construction: the Reading Power Station, the Habima theater, the Shalom Meir Tower, the Mann Auditorium (Heichal Hatarbut), and many others. It's a fascinating, down-to-earth documentation of the construction industry in Israel with no trace of the heroic, although Kofler says that Weissenstein was as socially committed as most of the other photographers of his day. His camera juxtaposes a camel caravan transporting construction materials with the grandiose Reading Power Station, looking as if it had landed on the banks of the Yarkon from another planet. We see that the Habima under construction prefigured the ugliness of its finished form; we view the innards of the Mann Auditorium, which, without its elegant exterior, looks more like a small sports stadium. At present, with the Mann Auditorium about to undergo alterations (while the dispute between the heirs of its planners goes on in court), there's undoubtedly particular value in a photograph of the building under construction. Weissenstein's Tel Aviv does not evoke much nostalgia for the city's past. We may find this disappointing, but evidently it was never a beautiful city - at least not in terms of how the camera captured it. "Tel Aviv the White City," documented by Weissenstein from his first moment here, is much less white and shining than it appears in the carefully-arranged, and mostly retouched, photographs of the well-known architectural photographer Itzhak Kalter. It was Kalter's camera that in fact created the image of Tel Aviv as a Bauhaus city in the public consciousness. Weissenstein photographed for private and government companies like Hamashbir Hamerkazi, Yitzhar, Elite, Vita and Amcor. For many years he was also the official photographer of the Israel Philharmonic. Most of Weissenstein's photos of buildings were commissioned by large construction companies, mainly Rassco Israel Corporation, his client for 40 years. He photographed private homes and residential apartment buildings (among other things) for Rassco in north Tel Aviv, Holon, Kiryat Ono, Ashdod, Nahariya, and elsewhere, at the beginning of the massive wave of construction by large contractors in Israel during the 1950s and 1960s. Preserved in thick binders and old wooden drawers in his studio are thousands of contact sheets and film negatives showing apartment blocks and residential neighborhood developments, groundbreaking ceremonies in which cornerstones were laid in the presence of construction moguls and senior figures in the nation's business and political circles. These photos provide a fine picture of how the built landscape of Israel came into being over several decades, and give a sense of the relationships between the realm of construction and Israel's economy, politics, lifestyle, and nonheroic architecture, sane by comparison with today's. Weissenstein was born in Czechoslovakia to middle-class, well-educated, Zionist parents. His father owned a factory, his mother was an amateur pianist. As a young man, he was a member of the Blau-Weiss youth movement. He went to the High School of the Arts in Vienna and on graduation was accepted as a photographer for a newspaper put out by the Czech Foreign Office in Prague. In Israel, he worked for a time as a newspaper photographer, but left that to do commercial work. He was active in the effort to protect artists' creative rights. In 1939, he married Miriam, a graduate of a Viennese school of physical education. Miriam later became a full partner in their photography shop, his assistant and the manager of the archive. Kofler maintains that the archive has still not received the attention it deserves, despite the growing interest in recent years in the photography of pre-state Israel. Yet researchers and historians have shown substantial interest in the work of other photographers of his generation in Israel, like Walter Zadek, Zoltan Kluger and Tim Gidal. Weissenstein, says Kofler, "never saw himself as an artist - not in the 1930s, during the period of avant-garde and experimental photography in the style of Moholy Nagy, nor after the ideological era of the 1970s in Israel, during which photographers were seeking to emphasize the personal aspect of their work and thought of themselves as belonging to the larger community of artists. Weissenstein saw himself as the quintessential newspaper photographer. He was, first of all, an independent photographer who looked after his own livelihood and wanted to establish an archive." Weissenstein didn't photograph wars, writes Kofler, "and kept his distance from outright political involvement. His commissioned photographs from Nazareth, Lod, Ramle, Haifa, the Galilee and the Negev were intended to portray the coexistence that ostensibly existed between the Arabs and the authorities and Jewish residents. After the Six-Day War, Weissenstein photographed landscapes and images in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Nablus, Hebron and Jericho." "Non-art" photography, capturing reality "as it is," sans aura, is a focus of interest today, says Kofler. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Weissenstein's studio, which hasn't changed in a very long time, has lately become a mecca for photographers, artists, historians and theoreticians of photography and art. Among them is artist Yigal Shtayim, who is behind the story of the exhibition. Shtayim, who paints from photographs, moved to Tel Aviv a few years ago and was surprised to discover the shop with its archive hidden away in those wooden drawers. As time went by, he says, he found himself coming to the shop often and spending a lot of time there. Concerned about the future of the archive, Shtayim recruited businessman Danny Fruchter in support of a rescue mission, one component of which was to create a digital back-up archive. Fruchter died suddenly in 1999 and his family is the principal donor for the show at Reading, a memorial exhibition bearing Fruchter's name. The Israel Electric Corp., for which Weissenstein took many photographs over the years, offered the spectacular Turbine Hall at the Reading Power Station for the occasion. The photographs in the exhibition (which will be open through May 10, from 4 P.M. to 8 P.M.) appear in chronological order. Kofler has thereby given us an interesting juxtaposition of events that took place contemporaneously in Tel Aviv: a fashion show at a furriers' salon, alongside a view of jobseekers at an unemployment office; a slice of the city's vibrant social life, cheek by jowl with a hunt for hidden weapons in an Arab neighborhood. According to Kofler, visitors to the exhibition will leave with the feeling that "nothing of any real importance has changed here since the 1930s." ***** "Keren Kayemeth Umetsalemet - Tmunot Mehakufsa Hakhola 1903-2003" ("The Jewish National Fund Photographs - Pictures from the Blue Box, 1903-2003"), edited by Gadi Dagon, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael - The Jewish National Fund, 237 pages, NIS 70 One of the best-known (and most battered) anecdotes from the period of the War of Independence tells of a rabbi in Safed. Shortly after the victory of the Haganah and the establishment of Jewish control over Arab Safed - which was six or seven times larger than the Jewish population of Safed - the rabbi was asked how this could have happened. He replied: through deed and miracle. When asked to explain, he elucidated with full confidence: The deed was our prayers to the Lord God and the miracle - that the Palmach arrived. Over the years this remark has evoked endless smiles and snorts, to the effect of: Go forth and see the perverted logic of that rabbi and his ilk. Eventually, I met Meir Meiber, the commander of the Haganah in Safed during the War of Independence, and I asked him for his opinion of this story. He surprised me by saying: "That rabbi was right. In the embattled Jewish Safed that was fighting for its life, every person made his contribution: The young people fought until the Palmach arrived and then helped it; the adults did any difficult job - digging trenches, fortifying buildings, producing weapons; women were radio operators and nurses and cooked for the fighters; the children and the adolescents served as messengers. The old men and the rabbis came to us and told us that they also wanted to help. We asked them: What do you know how to do? They said: We know how to pray and read Psalms. We said to them: Very good. And indeed they prayed and did what was required of them, and therefore they too have a part in the victory." I remembered these words when I read the texts that accompany the catalog of the exhibition "Keren Kayemeth Photographs," which was held not long ago at the historic "Reading A" power station in Tel Aviv. In this exhibition, curated by Gadi Dagon (who also edited the book of the same title), the claim is reiterated, time after time, that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) photographers, over a period of several decades - from the 1920s to the end of the '50s - were sort of modern Marranos: They had to hitch themselves to the "cart of Zionism" while in their hearts they were often disgusted with the determined society that they photographed. As Adam Baruch wrote in his article "Hurrah for the Planters!" in the book: "The JNF was interested in image-building materials, creating an image, strengthening an image. The JNF was part of the Zionist ethos. The JNF, the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization were part of the hegemony. Photography was a tool for propaganda and the effective appropriation of the hegemony. Working Jewish land in the Land of Israel represented the hegemony. The working of the land was photographed and shown in this country and abroad, and along with it, photographs of the soldier boy and the soldier girl, the working man and the working woman, the water towers, the guard towers, the roads, the conquest of the wilderness. Independent photography - that is, not committed propaganda photography - crowded into the margins. For the independent photographer had no real employer." The photographers, most of them immigrants from Central Europe who had no choice, contributed their part to "the Zionist production line." Dilemmas and difficulties Rona Sela, in her article "To Conquer the Mountain" at the beginning of the book, also describes the photographers' dilemmas and difficulties. They were forced to deal with a demanding establishment that not only required they follow the official line and "take photographs that for the most part were `properly' constructed (for example, with respect to composition) - aesthetic, beautiful and precise - which became an integral part of the system of marketing and information of Zionist propaganda," but also demanded that the photographers hand over to them the negatives of the photographs. It seems as though she, and Adam Baruch before her, are ignoring the desire of most of the members of the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community in Palestine) that was taking shape in the Land of Israel, to participate in the act of Zionist creativity. The photographers, like the elders and rabbis of Safed, wanted to contribute their skills in their own way, and despite the difficult conditions and the tiny compensation, they did their bit and apparently were proud of it. And with respect to the establishment that commissioned and was tough with the photographers - that is, the propaganda and photography departments of the national institutions - it appears that there is no call for the many complaints against it on the part of the editor of and contributing writers in this book: Thanks only to this establishment was a huge reservoir of 180,000 photographs collected in the JNF archive alone, as well as hundreds of thousands of other photographs in other archives. This establishment, which is often attacked for its authoritarianism and the fact that it dictated the subjects of the photographs, was what allowed for the preservation of the photographed history of "the state- to-be" and of the state in its early years. To this day the JNF is one of the most "Zionist" organizations, and it is interesting to see how an almost official publication of this organization has been infiltrated by clearly post-Zionist overtones. Thus, in the aforementioned article by Rona Sela, not one of the photographers came to Israel in the sense of aliyah as in "ascent" or pilgrimage. At most he "arrived," and almost always "immigrated," in the nonspiritual sense. Sela also does not like the term "Land of Israel." In most cases she prefers "Palestine," the official British name for the country as it was written in those days on official documents and currency of the time. The book itself, like the exhibition, is carefully executed and astonishingly beautiful. All the photographs are large and clear. About 80 percent of the pages are devoted to early photographs and those were taken during the first 20 years of the state, as well as to biographies of the photographers, most of whom are fathers of Israeli photography. On the remaining pages contemporary photographers are given the opportunity to grapple with landscapes and people of our times. The contrast is obvious, not only because of the use of color, as all the early photographs are in black and white; everything is so different, and there is nothing like the eye of the camera and the contemporary photographer to demonstrate this. Among the "historic" photographers, mention must be made of S.Y. Schweig, Zoltan Kluger, Lazar Donar, Tim Gidal, Werner Braun and David Charis; among the modern photographers - Miki Kratsman, Michal Heiman, Tamar Karavan and Shlomo Arad. Embarrassing errors Thirteen photographs in the last part of the book are devoted to celebrities from Israel and abroad whom the JNF took the trouble to immortalize as they planted trees in its forests. We can find David Ben-Gurion there, and Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and other leaders alongside Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, Rock Hudson and Brooke Shields as well as musical giants Artur Rubinstein and Pablo Casals. For a moment the suspicion wells up in us that provincialism overcame artistic logic, until Adam Baruch comes along and rescues us. In his aforementioned article he relates that the French aviation company Air France published a book of photographs in 1991, a homage to French and international celebrities who flew in its planes. They are immortalized outside the plane and within it, next to the symbols of the company. And if Air France can do it, who are we to say a bad word about the use of celebrities to promote sales of an exhibition and a book? Finally, in such a well-made book as the one before us, there are several annoying errors in the captions to the photographs. According to these, some of the photographers took the pictures here before they even immigrated. Thus, in Shmuel Yosef Schweig's photograph from 1920 of the Jezreel Valley, there is a tractor, while in that year no land had yet been purchased in the valley, there was not a single tractor in the country and Schweig, according to the book, came to the country only in 1922. That same photography year, 1920, appears in the caption of another of Schweig's photographs. It is also not clear how two of Avraham Malevsky's photographs document Ma'aleh Hahamisha in 1937, while this kibbutz settled the land only the following year. The most embarrassing caption is attached to a photograph by Zoltan Kluger. The photograph shows a teacher during a geography lesson in Tel Aviv, and the caption says that the year is 1938 - while on the blackboard the Hebrew date of December 3, 1947 is written in chalk. There also should have been more accuracy, both in the exhibition and in the book, about the date from which it begins. To begin in 1903 and to mark 100 years now looks and sounds "round" and fascinating, but it can't be helped - there is no photograph from before the 1920s. But these are only comments. The history of creation over decades - mainly from the perspective of Zionism - is gathered in the pages of this beautiful album. It is not clear whether the photographers knew that they were taking pictures of history, but as in the words Natan Alterman put into the mouth of the photographer in his play "Kinneret, Kinneret," photographs have a lifespan of their own: "For light that is neither vertical nor horizontal / adds much vitality to objects / and the picture seems to be washed in dew / for up to 100 years, guaranteed." Among the books by Dr. Mordecai Naor are "The Twentieth Century in Eretz Yisrael - A Pictorial History" and "The Jewish People in the Twentieth Century - A Pictorial History." ***** Last week, when Hitler's favorite filmmaker in the Nazi cause, Leni Riefenstahl, died, the Noga Gallery of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv opened an exhibition about sports: "The Rules of the Game." Fourteen artists are represented, among them Zoltan Kluger with photographs of gymnasts in Israel in the '40s that are very reminiscent of Riefenstahl's films, particularly her "Triumph of the Will" on the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The resemblance between Riefenstahl's films and Kluger's photographs is not surprising. Both were schooled in Germany in the same photographic traditions and the same approach to composition. Both served an aggressive ideology with their art, and documented it with sporting events. Riefenstahl used these techniques to glorify the Nazi party and the Aryan race; Kluger, who came to Israel in the 1920s and was among the first to photograph sporting events in this country, used them to create the myth of the "new Jew" and to glorify the Zionist enterprise. Soccer players in a china shop The Jewish National Fund helped establish the image of the "new Jew" - a strong, steadfast athlete, radiating victory in body and mind. Rona Sela, a scholar of photography, notes that sports and sports photography have always had a role in Israel's national revival. That was how the Maccabiah Games came about - to build the new Jew and showcase him to the world. "The new Jew was a strong, powerful athlete, unlike Jews in the Diaspora," says Sela. "Photographs from the Maccabiah show both soldiers and sportsmen." Kluger's work at this exhibit seems like a voice from the distant past, evoking empathy but also emphasizing how greatly Israeli society has changed. The gap between his photographs and the works hanging nearby expresses the difference between Israeli society when it won its independence (a collective geared to the shared goal of building and renewal) and today's Israel, geared to individualism. The artist, who once embraced the ruling ideology, has over the years become critical, doubting and cynical. Artists these days increasingly use images from sports to project an alternative to the Zionist vision or to reflect on its death. Consider the work of Adi Nes, for example, in which the image of the splendidly built athlete is converted into a homoerotic image - a dark-skinned, handsome youth with a dreamy look, holding a basketball in his hand. Drawings by Gal Weinstein, of a basketball in steel wool used for washing dishes, neutralizes the symbol's masculinity, while the photo by Roi Kuper, of an empty Mitzpe Ramon soccer field, surrounded by desert, reinforces the sense of death and emptiness left behind by the great vision. Meaningless exercise A sober gaze at the Zionist dream is also evident in the volleyball paintings by Tamar Horowitz, a graduate of Oranim College and a former volleyball player, who portrays the game as pointless and meaningless. Idit Levavi, head of the art department at Oranim, points out, "Volleyball was a ritual on the kibbutz, way beyond the game itself. Because it has no hierarchy, it was a symbol of cooperation, of team spirit. You can see this in the paintings of the kibbutz by Yochanan Simon from the 1940s, presenting volleyball as part of the pastoral vision of the place." A major share of the works in the Noga show deal in some way with the power of sport to create a strong sense of collective identity, something that can also be dangerous. Sports remains the last unifying power in a privatized society, especially in hard times. Every Israeli victory these days evokes pride, particularly given the state's international isolation since the outbreak of the intifada. But in these victories, there is also something fundamentally dangerous, inciting, and violent. The connection between sports and sports worship, and art and fascism - and the anxiety that this connection evokes - are conspicuous in the series of works by Ori Gersht. The stadia in his panoramic photographs are venues for secular worship. The camera distorts shapes and turns them into heroic and threatening structures. Most artists whose work is connected with sports are themselves athletes or former athletes. Rotem Balva is a tennis player; Eti Yakobi plays on Israel's national squash team; Ori Gersht, Yoav Shmueli and Gal Weinstein are former soccer players; Asnat Austerlitz was a gymnast and dancer; and Drora Domini and Tamar Horowitz were professional volleyball players. Sport is part of the artist's ongoing work with himself and his own biography. The sports world greatly resembles the art world. Noga Gallery curator Nehama Gottlib notes these are both closed realms, divorced from reality, operating within boundaries defined by an autonomous set of laws. Both sports and art depend in some way on spectators and lead to a catharsis; and both require investors. Hence they are captive to pretension and conspicuous consumption, while addressing esthetics. Athletes serve the capital market, the media, the fans and advertising, just as artists do. Individual expression ostensibly relies on the people who run the art world and determine what motivates it. The works at the Noga Gallery, and elsewhere, try to pose questions about the status of the athlete - the superstar - and the sports world, by presenting players at their moment of weakness, or by a minor change that disturbs the rules of the game and reveals how fragile and illusory is the entire system. In the Noga show, Asnat Austerlitz is exhibiting drawings with broken outlines of women sprinters that object to the sculpted female body as a symbol of health and a model to emulate. "Women athletes don't look the way they do as a result of doing more sport but because of social norms that demand that women serve as models," she says. "It involves dieting, medications and suffering. This is a model that I as a woman learned to copy and to admire, but I am also ambivalent about it." Artist on a skateboard Some of the artists, with slight changes to an ordinary event, show the exaggeration of sport, which rests on uncompromising laws; bending them can neutralize the meaning of the game. Balva, a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in Jerusalem, for instance, reveals the lack of meaning in tennis the moment she takes it out of its customary setting. Balva's current work at the Noga show documents her "Tennis" installation from about a year and a half ago at a gallery in Paris. There, Balva played tennis in the exhibition space; opposite her, on the wall, hung large plates covered with wax, and behind her hung prints showing a ball's imprint. The actual ball Balva swung at, hit the wax and came back to her racket, leaving a wax imprint on the walls and on the floor. All this was filmed and shown on a monitor outside the gallery. The installation shifted the game of tennis from the glittering, floodlit stadium to the gallery, sans glitter and sans crowd, and drained away its power. "Think of a totally silent soccer stadium. There's a goal, and no one gets up, and no one says anything," commented a gallery visitor. It would seem that when artists deal with sports, especially artists who were once athletes, it's partly a rebellion against the intellectualization and babble that have ruled the art world in recent years. Working with sports expresses a need to use the body again. "It's important to get something into the cultural space that involves sweat and dirt, something not intellectual, from the field," says Balva. "It's important to give the act itself a presence in the art space. Not something about image, but about the body's need to live, to work, to release energy." **** Walter Zadek, am 26.3.1900 als Sohn des bekannten Arztes Dr. Ignaz Zadek an der Dresdener Straße in Berlin Kreuzberg geboren (er ist übrigens der Onkel des Regisseurs Peter Zadek), lernte er hautnah das Kreuzberger Proletarierleben kennen. Walter Zadek: »Mein Vater nahm mich gelegentlich zu Hausbesuchen in Arbeiterwohnungen mit.« »Die Abitursprüfung 1918 habe ich nur bestanden, weil der Kaiser Soldaten brauchte. In Mathe war ich nämlich eine Null.« Aus dem Luisenstädtischen Realgymnasium wäre er fast rausgeflogen, weil er die jährlichen Feiern zu Kaisers Geburtstag nicht würdigte. »Die Schüler mußten den Kaiser im Chor hochleben lassen. Ich habe statt dessen Rhabarber, Rhabarber, Rhabarber gerufen«, schmunzelt Zadek. 1918 ging er nach München, später zurück nach Berlin. Aus wirtschaftlichen Gründen brach er sein Studium ab und begann in der Kurfürstenbuchhandlung zu arbeiten. Bereits nach kurzer Zeit wurde er dort Geschäftsführer. In den 20er Jahren wurde er mit Musterexemplaren nach Prag geschickt, um harte Devisen für das Geschäft zu besorgen. »Irgendwann schmiß ich alles hin«, erzählt Walter Zadek. »Auf der Heimfahrt lernte ich im Zug einen Mann kennen: Hermann Ullstein. Er kannte meine Buchkritiken.« Im Ullsteinverlag wurde er Hilfsredakteur - anfangs unter Kurt Tucholsky - (Zadek nennt das schmunzelnd "Sitzredakteur", da er notfalls eben auch riskierte, für Tucholskys Texte verantwortlich zu sein und verhört zu werden, eben auch sitzen zu müssen Anm.d.R.), und mit 25 Jahren Redakteur und verantwortlicher Redakteur des Magazins "Der Uhu". Nach der sechsten Ausgabe wurde er entlassen, später aber als verantwortlicher Redakteur des ersten Beiblatts des "Berliner Tageblatts", der führenden demokratischen Tageszeitung unter Theodor Wolff eingestellt. »Diese Seite erfreute sich großer Beliebtheit. Im Beiblatt gab es jeweils ein Schwerpunktthema. Da schrieben Albert Einstein, Johannes R. Becher oder Heinrich Mann für mich.« Als einer der höchstbezahlten Redakteure mußte er auf dem Gipfel der Wirtschaftskrise entlassen werden und gründete 1930 einen eigenen Artikeldienst, die "Zentralredaktion für deutsche Zeitungen" (ZdZ), eine Art Nachrichtenagentur, mit der er bald über 80 Zeitungen belieferte, am Laubenheimer Platz (heute Ludwig-Barnay-Plat) in der Künstlerkolonie, wo er seit 1930 auch wohnte. Am 15. März 1933 wurde er dort von den Nazis in einer Großrazzia herausgeschlagen. Walter Zadek wird zum Polizeigefängnis am Alexanderplatz geschafft, schließlich ins Festungsgefängnis nach Spandau. Auf wundersame Weise kommt schon im April 1933 ohne irgendwelche Ausweispapiere illegal wieder frei, kann fliehen und gelangt über Holland, Belgien, schließlich im Dezember 1933 durch Unterstützung von Freunden in das damalige britische Mandatsland Palästina, wo er bis zu seinem Tode am 20.12.1992 wohnte (seine Frau wohnt noch heute dort). Dort suchte er sich durch drei Berufe gleichzeitig durchzubringen: als Buchhändler, als Journalist und als Pressefotograf. Nach Kriegsende veröffentlichte Zadek Beiträge in Blättern der Bundesrepublik, gab das Taschenbuch "Sie flohen vor dem Hakenkreuz" bei Rowohlt heraus und einen sozialkritischen Palästina-Fotoband. Häufig erschienen Interviews mit ihm in deutschen Sendern sowie Lebensberichte im Fernsehen. 91jährig nahm er die beschwerliche Reise nach Berlin auf anläßlich der Kreuzberger Veranstaltung "Ein Zeitzeuge von 90 rastlosen Jahren, Walter Zadek - Ein Querkopf besucht Berlin". Am 9.11.1991 gab er Holger Münzer ein ausführliches Interview, das im KünstlerKolonieKurier Nr. 4 (1995/96) auszugsweise veröffentlicht wurde. Werkauswahl: Buchkritik, Schicksalsberichte, Reportagen, Kulturpolitik; »Kein Utopia« (1946), »Sie flohen vor dem Hakenkreuz, ein Lesebuch für Deutsche«, Schicksalsberichte und Lyrik (1981 und 1983) , Palästina-Fotoband 1986, »Die freigeistig-jüdischen Zadeks aus der Oranienstraße«, ein Familienbericht, Film: »Erinnerungen an Palästina«     ebay1396/28
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  • Religion: Judaism
  • Country of Manufacture: Israel
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: Israel

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